Ben Quick arrives in Frenchman's Bend, MS after being kicked out of another town for allegedly burning a barn for revenge. Will Varner owns just about everything in Frenchman's Bend and he hires Ben to work in his store.
Will thinks his own son, Jody, who manages the store, lacks ambition and despairs him getting his wife, Eula, pregnant. Will thinks his daughter, Clara, a schoolteacher, will never get married. He decides that Ben Quick might make a good husband for Clara to bring some new blood into the family.
After being sent to a youth detention centre, 18-year-old Andrej has to fight for his place within the group of inmates while getting closer to Ċ½eljko, their informal leader, and struggling to keep his repressed secret in the dark.